LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



0017 199 1808 




Hollinger Corp. 






UtV^UTL JVoxj . *x ^ ^ 




3ust For Greens 



Compiled, like "Precious nonsense" 
and "Jl Chamber of Rorrors," bp 



• 




Copprigbt, moccCXCVIIl, bp francis 
and Hew ton *** Studio, tbirtp=four 
Gramercp park »»»# new ?ork Citp 



Press of 3. €. Richardson 
149 Pearl Street, new York 
MDCCCXVIII <&&&>& 



k O fare ye well, cold Winter, and 

So fare ye well, white frost ; 
Pll sing and be as merry when 

My true love I have lost* 
Pll sing and be as merry when 

Occasion I do see. 
Oh, I ever will disown him ; 

Let him go, farewell he ! 

Let him go, let him stay, 

Let him sink or let him swim ! 

I wish him a good fortune and 
Myself a better grace, 

And I hope to be provided for 
In a far better place. 

He is witty, he is pretty, 

He is everything complete. 
Now is it not a pity he 

Should use so much deceit ? 
Now is it not a pity so 

Deceitful he should be ? 
Oh, I ever will disown him ; 

Let him go, farewell he ! 

If he ever gets another, 

He will get her in a joke ; 
And he thinks in his own soul 

That me he doth provoke. 
But if any like his carriage, 

And they both can agree, 
Pll never spoil his marriage ; 

Let him go, farewell he ! 



SHOPPING. 

4 4 Of\^HERE are the linens kept ? " she asked. 
/«/V " Downstairs " was the reply. 

She sweetly smiled and grabbed her train, 
And quickly hastened by. 

Once down, she ventured to inquire, 
** The linens, are they here ? n 
"Just three rooms over to the right 
And straight back in the rear." 

At last she reached the point proposed. 
" The linens ? " — like a crash 
The answer came across the shop, 
** They're six rooms over — Cash ! " 

Again she jostled through the crowd, 
And faintly asked the clerk, 
" The linens, please ? " " Upstairs," he said, 
With tantalizing smirk. 

She reached the top, quite out of breath, 
44 The linens, sir ? " she said. 
44 In the annex building, five floors up, 
And then walk straight ahead." 

Accomplishing the long ascent, 

Her temper sorely tried, 
She sharply asked the man in charge, 

With wrath she could not hide : 

44 Will you tell me where the linens are, 

Or if they're in the store ? " 
" We used to keep them, ma'am/' he smiled, 
* But do not any more." 

From the London Tid-Bits. 



© 



THE VILLAGE ORACLE. 

LD Danl Hanks he sez this town 
Is jist the best on earth ; 
He sez there haint one op nor down 

That's got one hiif her worth. 
He sez there haint no other State 
That's good as ourn, nor near ; 
And all the folks that's good or great 
Is settled right round here. 

Sez I, "D'jer ever travel, Dan ?" 
" You bet I haint," sez he, 
"I tell you what, the place I've got 
Is good enough for me." 

He sez the other party's fools. 

Cause they don't vote his way ; 
He sez the feeble-minded schools 

Is where they ought to stay. 
If he was law their mouths he'd shut, 

Or blow 'em all to smash ; 
He sez their platform's nothin' but 
A great big mess of trash. 

Sez I, " D'jer ever read it, Dan ? " 
" You bet I haint," sez he, 
" And when I do, well, I tell you, 
I'll let you know, by gee ! " 

He sez that all religion's wrong, 

'Cept jist what he believes ; 
He sez them ministers belong 
In jail, the same as theives. 
He sez they take the Blessed Word 

And tear it all to shreds ; 
He sez their preachin's jist absurd, 
They're simply leather-heads. 

Sez I, " D'jer ever hear 'em, Dan? " 
"You bet I haint," sez he, 
"I wouldn't go to hear them, no I 
They make me sick to see." 

Some fellers reckon, more or less, 

Before they speak their mind, 
And sometimes calkerlate or guess, 

But them haint Dan'l's kind. 
The Lord knows all things, great or small, 

With doubt He's never vexed ; 
He in His wisdom knows it all, 
But Danl Hanks comes next. 

Sez I, "How do you know you're right ? " 
" How do I know ? " sez he, 
"Well now, I vum I I know, by gum, 
I'm right, because I BE." 

Joe Lincoln, L. A. W. Bulletin. 



3 



SISSY'S HAT. 

SING of Sissy's picture hat. 

The brim is broad and thick and flat, 

And wibble-wobbles by. 
The squashy crown, a plushy lump 
Inspired by a camel's hump, 

Is awful to the eye. 

Unknown to Botany and Gray, 
Eleven kinds of flowers sway 

And sprangie in the air. 
Behind, in ribbons interlaced, 
A parrot and a fox are placed 

An ostrich farm to share. 

In front, a jewelled bat is seen. 
Three katydids of emerald green 

Appear on either side, 
And when I first the viper viewed 
That on the tip-a-top is glued 

I thought I should have died. 

To church sweet Sissy joys to wear 
This circum-ambulant parterre 

By deadly pins confined. 
I love her face, I hate her hat, 
And while this is obscured by that 

I wish that I were blind. 



N. M. 



A BALLAD OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN. 

WAS one dark night on Lac Champlain, 

An' de win' she's blow, blow, blow ; 
When de crew of de wood-scow Jule La Plante 

Get scare an' run below. 
For de win' she's blow like a hurricane ? 

Bime-by she's blow some more ; 
An' de scow buss up on Lac Champlain, 

Juss half-mile from de shore. 

De cap'n she's walk de front deck ; 

She's walk de hind deck too ? 
She's call de crew from up de hoi'; 

She's call de cook also. 
Dat cook his name was Rosa, 

He's come from Montreal, 
Was chamher-maid on a lumber barge 

On de big Lachine Canal. 

De win' she's blow from nor' eas' wes', 

An' de sous win' she's blow too ; 
When Rosa say, ** Oh, capitan, 

Vatever s'all we do ? " 
De cap'n den she's trow de hank, 

But still dat scow she drif' ; 
An' de crew he can't pass on dat shore, 

Because he's lose de skiff. 

De night vas dark like von black cat, 

An' de waves roll high an' fast ; 
Ven de cap'n take poor Rosa, 

An' she lash him to de mast. 
Den de cap'n put on de life-preserve, 

An' she jump into de lac, 
An' say, ** Good-bye, my Rosa dear ; 

I go drown for your sake." 

Nex' mornin' very hearly, 

'Bout half-past two, three, four, 
De cap'n, cook and wood-scow 

Lay corpses on dat shore. 
For de win' she's blow like a hurricane ; 

Bime-by she's blow some more ; 
An' de scow buss up on Lac Champlain, 

'Bout half-mile from de shore. 

Now all you wood-scow sailor-mans 

Take warning by dat storm, 
An' go an' marry von nice French girl, 

An' live on von nice farm. 
Den de win' may blow like a hurricane, 

An' s'pose she's blow some more, 
You von't get drown on Lac Champlain, 

So long you stay on shore. 



3 



NIRVANA. 

AM 

A clam. 
Come learn of me 
Unclouded peace and calm content, 

Serene, supreme tranquility, 
Where thoughtless dreams and dreamless thoughts 
are blent ; 

When the salt tide is rising to the flood, 
In billows blue my placid pulp I lave ; 

And when it ebbs I slumber in the mud, 
Content alike with ooze or crystal wave. 

I do not shudder when in chowder stewed, 
Nor when the Coney Islander engulfs me raw. 

When in the church soup's dreary solitude 
Alone I wander, do I shudder ? Nor 

If jarring tempests beat upon my bed, 

Or summer peace there be, 
I do not care : as I have said, 
All's one to me ; 
A clam 
I am. 



5 



THE EXPERIMENT. 

IRST I told her I'd surprise her, 
Then I hypnotized Eliza.. 
Why, you wou'dn' recognize her 

Leadin' me in such a dance. 
Would you dream that she'd be able 
For to wreck a dinin' table ? 
Well, a wire cordage cable 

Couldn't hold her in the trance. 

When I made the passes at her, 
Seemin'ly they sort o' scat her, 
For she plunged an' split a platter 

On a shelf behind the door. 
An' the palpitatin' creature, 
While I tried an' tried to hitch her, 
Went collidin' with a pitcher 

Which she pitched upon the floor. 

No one couldn' go anear her ; 
It was terrible to hear her, 
'Cause her trumpetin' was queerer 

Than a blasted Caili-ope. 
Up an' down she was a thrashin', 
Keepin' up a deadly crashin'; 
All the bustables was smashin', 

An' without a ray o' hope. 

All my ears was full o' ringin' 
When I seen her swingin', swingin', 
An' the janitor was bringin' 

In a cop to stop the roar 
When she up an' stove the ceilin' 
Like she hadn' any feelin'; 
An' the both of us was reelin' 

When she slugged me in the jaw. 

'Liza's sand was so amazin' 
All the sporty boys are praisin' 
C the Cain she been a raisin' 

An' the tear that she's a-tore. 
But, tho' gettio' decent wages, 
It's a goin' to take me ages 
To pay up for her rampages, 

Let alone her doin' more. 

If the prize-ring was her orbit, 

She'd deliberately rob it 

O' Persimmons an' Fitzcorbett ; 

^'hat be they but mortal men? 
Oh, you wouldn' reco'nize her 
If I hypnotized Eliza, 
But I wish that I may die, sir, 

If I try it on again. 

N. M. 



A WOMAN WITH A MISSION. 

k HE declaimed with fervid vigor 
on the misery of the Digger, 
cot a most dramatic figure 
while lamenting his condition. 
And she said the bare Numidian 
and the much-tanned Abyssinian 
and the Cannibal and Guinean 
overflowed her with contrition. 

And her deep sighs weighed the breezes 

for these lands where bread and cheese is ; 

for the Turks and the Chineses 

she was filled with deep emotion. 
And her ardent love was greater 

all the more she strove to cater 

to those tribes beyond the equator, 

or across a distant ocean. 

And like Rachel, that sweet Jewess, 

she wept tears as thick as glue is 

at the actions of St. Louis 

and Chicago's degradation. 
And that these towns, where such sin is, 

such a race for golden guineas, 

might be made as good as Lynn is 

was her prayer and supplication. 

For the wild man of Alaska, 

or of barbarous Madagascar, 

she would say, if you should ask her, 

that her love was deep and tender : 
While her husband, luckless victim, 

looked as though the Fates had licked him ; 

and through back streets, where they kicked him, 

walked about with one suspender. 



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